Local Granby Resident Glidden S. Doman To Be Featured Guest At New England Air Museum

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March 12, 2013|Susan R. Orred, New England Air Museum, Granby

Granby resident Glidden S. Doman is an engineer who has pioneered two seemingly diverse but related areas: the design of helicopters, and the design of wind turbines.

Glidden Sweet Doman was born in Syracuse, New York in 1921. Glid's engineering capability and creativity was evident early on. When a recent college grade at 22, Doman's brother invited him to attend a Society of Automotive Engineers meeting where Igor Sikorsky was a featured speaker. From this Glid became interested in helicopter rotors. Helicopters were still a very new invention, and the rotor blades suffered quickly from fatigue. In August 1943, Doman went to work for Sikorsky in Bridgeport.

At Sikorsky during WWII, Glid participated in intensive experimentation and flight testing, making considerable improvements in the helicopters' blade life. His contributions were so vital that Igor Sikorsky himself appealed to the draft board to keep Glid on the test program.

Doman later established Doman Helicopters, a company which consistently innovated solutions decades earlier than larger competitors, some of which are now standard in today's helicopter technology.

After 30 years in the helicopter world, Doman turned his rotor knowledge from flight to wind energy with breakthrough concepts in wind turbine design. In 1978 Glid moved to Granby and became chief systems engineer of the wind energy program at Hamilton Standard. Drawing on his extensive knowledge of rotor dynamics for both helicopters and wind turbines, United Technologies/Hamilton Standard designed and built two of the largest wind turbines ever built up to that time.

In 2003, he formed a new company, Gamma Ventures Inc, to market the production rights for the Gamma turbine he helped design in Italy. These turbines are an example of rotor technology going global in a different application, after its beginnings with Igor Sikorsky's first helicopters and Doman's testing of them more than 60 years ago, followed by the development of rotor dynamics knowledge later applied to wind turbines.

Today Doman resides in Granby and recently marked his 92nd birthday. He is still innovating, and also active in supporting the New England Air Museum in Windsor Locks, where two of his helicopters - the converted Sikorsky/Doman R-6 and a Doman YH-31/LZ-5 --are on display. Of the original half-dozen companies in the U.S. helicopter industry, he is the last company founder still alive. He is one of the few helicopter pioneers to have transferred rotor dynamics technology from helicopters to wind turbines.

At the New England Air Museum's Open Cockpit Sunday planned for March 17, Glid will be available to meet with visitors to talk about his experiences.

(The author thanks both Steve Doman and Bob Sperry for their research contributions to this article.)